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10+ best online advertising strategies
The best online advertising strategies include:
1. Geofencing advertising
Geofencing advertisingis one of the best online advertising methods for companies looking to target:
- Competitors
- Top talent
- High-value leads
- Local shoppers
- Qualified service areas
- And more
Withgeofencing, your business creates a virtual fence around a specific area, like a college campus, competitor location, or conference center. When someone enters this fence, they get added to a remarketing audience.
Your company can then remarket to these users, which can help build their brand awareness, guide their next shopping trip, or influence who their company requests quotes or proposals from next quarter.
This Internet advertising strategy offers your business a new, innovative, and effective way to reach your target audience. That’s why it’s worth checking out because it could help your company secure that next lead, move those customers away from competitors, or hire that passive candidate.
2. Amazon advertising
For ecommerce companies, Amazon is one of the best ways to advertise online — it’s also thethird most popular ad platform, behind Google and Facebook. WithAmazon Advertising, your business can promote your products and brand in Amazon search results, product pages, and more.
Even if your business doesn’t operate in the ecommerce sector, you can take advantage of Amazon ads. You can advertise on Amazon and Amazon-owned sites, likeIMDb, to build brand awareness.
Withmore than 50% of product searchesstarting on Amazon (instead of Google), it’s worth considering the potential positive impact of this Internet advertising strategy on your business, its brand awareness, and its bottom line.
Need help getting started? WebFX is a trustedad agency for Amazon.
3. Influencer advertising
Better known as influencer marketing, influencer advertisingis another effective advertising strategy.
In fact, influencer marketing offers an average ROI of$6.50 for every $1invested. Companies of all sizes, from big brands to small startups, use influencer marketing to create brand awareness, build user trust, and generate sales.
Besides partnering with an influencer and having them promote your brand, products, or services on their dedicated channels, you can also integrate influencers into your advertising campaigns. Your ads, for example, can feature your influencer.
Brands likeThe Hershey Company have used this strategy with success.
The Hershey Company partnered with several influencers to promote its Hot Cocoa Kisses on YouTube. In addition to the influencers promoting the product on their channels, The Hershey Company also launched a paid ad campaign on YouTube, which advertised the influencers’ Hot Cocoa Kisses content.
Thecampaign was a massive success, generating the following results:
- 12% increase in purchase intent
- 551% increase in searches
- $9+ million in retail sales
Results like these are why influencer marketing is quickly becoming one of the best digital advertising strategies. Get ahead of the curve and start experimenting with influencer marketing and advertising in your business.
4. Social media advertising
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram present huge opportunities to reach and connect with your target audience. That’s why these sites are quickly becoming some of the best ways to advertise online.
More than 80% of American adults have a social media profile — meaning the chances are high that your audience is active on social media. With advanced targeting options, like location, interests, and interactions, it’s easy to reach your target market via social media ads.
For example, if you operate a garage door company, you may use social media to target users within your service area. Yourgarage door advertising campaignmay go even further, focusing on the demographics of your target audience, like marital status, age, and gender, to build a better ad.
5. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
Next on our list ofadvertising channelsand strategies ispay-per-click.
PPC is an online advertising model that allows you to place ads in search engine results for specific keywords. While SEO focuses on earning rankings through content and optimizations, PPC lets you pay for placement for your target keywords.
PPCworks on a bidding systemin which you select target keywords, then compete with other advertisers to place ads in the search results for those keywords. If your bid is among the highest, you’ll earn placement above organic search results — and if someone clicks, you’ll pay your bid amount.
One of the biggest advantages of PPC is that (as the name implies), you only pay when users click on your advertisem*nt. This means you don’t have to worry about wasting your budget on people who aren’t interested in your business or ignore your ads.
PPC is also an effective advertising strategy because it can generate results the minute you launch a campaign. Unlike search engine optimization (SEO), which takes a few months to work, PPC can create sales and conversions immediately.
As an online advertising strategy example, anHVAC marketing strategythat uses PPC could start generating phone calls immediately for maintenance requests, emergency services, and more. That’s immediate revenue for that business!
PPC also works well in combination with SEO, because combining the two gives your business multiple opportunities to appear in search results. When people search for keywords related to your products or services, you want them to see your company in search results.
And if you’re wondering if PPC ads are an effective way to generate traffic and conversions, the answer isyes. Out of all the results on the page, the top three paid spots receive46% of the clicks, which means almost half of searchers will click on Google advertisem*nts.
Overall, Google is an effective channel foronline advertisingthat can work within any budget and increase your online visibility. And if you partner with an experiencedGoogle campaign manager, it can be exactly what you need to grow your business and increase your revenue.
6. Remarketing
With its targeting capabilities, remarketing is easily one of the best ways to advertise online.
Remarketing allows your business to advertise itself to users who previously engaged with you, like by:
- Visiting your site
- Joining your email newsletter
- Adding your product to their shopping cart
- Completing your quote form
- Following your social media profile
- And more
This digital advertising strategy is extremely effective. Compared to traditional display ads, remarketing campaigns perform 10 times better! They can also increase conversion rates by more than 160%, which benefits your bottom line in big ways.
If you want to get started with remarketing, you can launch remarketing campaigns on places like:
- Bing
- And more
In most cases, you’ll need to install a tracking pixel on your website. This tracking pixel powers your remarketing campaigns because it references users’ actions on your site, like visiting a URL, adding a product to their shopping cart, and more.
7. Podcast advertising
Now more than ever, businesses can use podcast advertising to:
- Build brand awareness
- Drive consideration
- Secure conversions
With podcast advertising, your company can promote its products, services, or offers via:
- Baked-in ads, which the podcast host(s) reads to all listeners
- Dynamic ads, which get dynamically added to the podcast based on the listener’s data
Podcast advertising requires more research than some of the best online advertising strategies. For example, if you’re considering baked-in ads, you’ll want to research (and listen to) the different podcasts to see if they fit your brand and target market.
8. Programmatic advertising
Programmatic advertising is another effective online advertising strategy.
With programmatic advertising, you use the power of artificial intelligence to automate ad buying. By supplying your audience targeting information, like location, time of day, interests, and more, programmatic advertising networks can purchase the best ad space for your company’s offer.
Companies like Google, Kellogg’s, and the Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) have already seen success with this digital advertising strategy. Don’t let these examples fool you, though. You don’t have to be a large, well-known company to use (or afford) programmatic advertising.
Businesses of all sizes can use programmatic ads, which is why they’re one of the best online advertising strategies.
9. Email advertising
Email advertising is another effective way to advertise online.
With email advertising, you promote your business through third-party email newsletters. Like influencer marketing, the publisher will highlight your brand, products, or services. Depending on their level of transparency, they might disclose your company’s sponsorship.
Similar to podcast advertising, email advertising requires more research since you need to:
- Research potential newsletters
- Reach out to potential candidates
- Provide any necessary documentation or offers
When it comes to email advertising, you don’t need a newsletter with a significant subscriber list.
People respond well to micro-influencers because they seem real and relatable, especially when compared to macro-influencers like celebrities and professional athletes. So, if a newsletter has great engagement, that’s a great sign it could help your business achieve its advertising goals.
10. CTV advertising
Another one of the best ways to advertise online is through connected TV (CTV) ads.
With CTV advertising, your business can reach its target audience as they watch their favorite movies and shows on streaming networks like Hulu, Facebook Watch, YouTube, and more. Plus, you can access your favorite targeting filters, like age, interest, location, purchase history, and more.
Compared to the other best online advertising strategies, connected TV ads focus on the following:
- Building brand awareness
- Maintaining brand interest
While these goals might seem far from your bottom line, they’re actually quite close. Why? Buyer journeys, whether business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C), take several touchpoints to convert — especially for companies with sales cycles that last months.
With CTV ads, you can keep your business top-of-mind at critical moments, like when:
- Researching other providers
- Working through contract reviews
- Waiting for feedback from other parties, like a spouse or C-Suite team member
So, if you’re looking to improve close rates and even conversion rates, try CTV ads!
11. Google Local Services Ads
For businesses that operate locally and provide services like plumbing, construction, or HVAC, Google Local Services Ads (LSAs) are a fantastic option for getting your brand in front of warm (or even hot) leads in your area.
With LSAs, your business earns a top spot in relevant local Google search results that displays your:
- Ratings
- Service area
- Hours
- Phone number
Unlike traditional PPC ads, which take users to a dedicated landing page upon clicking, LSAs expand to show more information about your company, like its reviews, biography, licenses, and more. Without visiting your site, users can decide if they want to hire your team.
If you want to get started with LSAs, you can through Google Ads!
3 bonus strategies to support your online advertising strategies
Like Batman and Robin, the best online strategies need a sidekick. With these bonus (sidekick) strategies, your business can support its digital advertising campaigns and improve its performance, resulting in more revenue for your company.
1. Web design
Whether you’re awater treatment plant investing in digital marketingor an online retailer usingco-op advertising, your website is an essential part of your business. It’s your home online and where people will turn for information about your products or services.
Your website will often be the first impression your business makes on your target audience.
Since your online advertising campaigns will refer traffic to your website, your web design can make or break their success. This means your site needs to effectively attract and keep users’ attention and encourage them to convert.
Some common best practices for web design include:
- Use a responsive design
- Include white space
- Maintain fast loading times
A well-designed site can make visitors want to stay longer and builds trust with potential customers. In fact, one study revealed that94% of respondentsmistrusted a website because of certain design elements — so if you haven’t updated your site in a while, users will notice.
2. SEO
Your website can be a great marketing tool — but only if your potential customers can find it.
The best way to make this happen is withsearch engine optimization or SEO. By investing in SEO, you can improve your website to help it rank well in searches related to your products or services.
SEO involves incorporating keywords related to your products or services on your site. When users search those keywords in search engines like Google, relevant pages (like yours) appear at the top of search results.
You can identify the best keywords for your pages by doing keyword research to see what your target audience is searching for and which keywords your competitors are targeting. You want to choose keywords used by your target audience and will attract them to your site.
You can improve your site’s SEO bypublishing original contentaround your target keywords and earning links from other authoritative sites online. You can improve your rankings, gain more traffic, and generate more leads and conversions with the right strategy.
The goal of SEO is to get your website to the top of the first page of results. Ideally, you want to be in thetop three positionsbecause they earn the majority of clicks. In fact, the top three results earn35% of the clicks on desktop and 31 % on mobile.
SEO is a great tool to help advertise your business to potential customers. Investing in SEO can boost your exposure, foot traffic, and conversion rate. It takes time, but the results can be well worth it for your business.
3. Content marketing
Content marketingis a great way to indirectly advertise your business to consumers by providing helpful or interesting information. You can create content like blogs, videos, infographics, and virtually any online format.
Regardless of your industry, publishing original content is an extremely effective way to connect with your target audience. When you share information your potential customers and clients find interesting, they’ll be much more likely to trust your brand.
Content marketing can establish your company as an authority and build your online reputation. When your target audience sees you reliably publishing new information within your industry, they’ll have confidence you’re a leader in your field.
In order to be successful with content marketing, you have to keep up with a regular publishing schedule.
Companies that post 16 times or more a month seefour times more trafficthan companies that only post a few times a month. This can seem like a difficult and time-consuming commitment, but it can be made easier by partnering with an agency forcopywriting services.
Written content isn’t the only route you can take, though — you can also create content in the form of original graphics.
Visual elements can grab users’ attention and, when combined with interesting information, can make them want to spend more time on your site. Plus, infographics are easy to share on social media, meaning they improve the chances that your visitors will share a link to your site with their followers.
If you want to take things a step further, videos are one of the most effective ways to engage visitors.Creating original video contentcan be more intensive than writing a blog post or designing a graphic, but when done well, the results for your business can be significant.
Content marketing is one of the best online advertising methods because it’s integral to advertising. For example, when launching an ad campaign, you need content for your ads and landing pages to hook and persuade users.
FAQs about digital advertising strategies
Got more questions about the best digital advertising strategies? Check out these FAQs:
What is the most effective online advertising strategy?
The most effective advertising strategy is typically pay-per-click advertising because of its reach, cost, and return on ad spend (ROAS). Every business, industry, and target audience is different, which means companies might see better results with a different strategy.
How do I choose the best online advertising strategy?
You’ll want to find the best online advertising strategies for your business by asking the following:
- How much is our monthly ad spend?
- Where does our audience spend time online?
- How much time do we have available for managing our ads?
- What creative assets do we have (or can we create) for advertising?
Based on your answers, you can narrow down your options.
Besides looking at digital advertising strategies, you’ll also want to look at and optimize your marketing strategies. Remember, certain efforts, like content marketing, search engine optimization, and web design, will support your online ad campaigns.
How much does online advertising cost?
Online advertising can cost anywhere from $2500 to $12,000 per month for small-to-midsized businesses. How much your company pays will depend on your industry, monthly ad spend, and aggressiveness.
Blend the best online advertising strategies with the best digital advertising team
Grow your ROAS with WebFX’s digital advertising services, which include our award-winning team and tech. From PPC to CTV, we offer full-service solutions that make advertising your business online seamless. Even better, our clients see a 25% increase (on average) in ROI.
See what blending the best online advertising strategies with the best digital advertising team can do for your business by contacting us online today to receive your custom proposal, which will include a strategy, flight plan, and pricing!
